Anatomy of Guilt
by Spikey44
Summary: Post Antarctica Story circa Mid-nineties. A Physician comes face to face with his own failings when called to perform a duty most distressing. All men are fallable. Sometimes there is no forgiveness. Beast learns he should never kill the mockingbird.


**Anatomy of Guilt**

_Disclaimer: All known and recognisable characters, locales and concepts etc. property of Marvel Comics_

Physicians are required to take oaths; the Hippocratic Oath, pledges of confidentiality, and any number of others. Physicians take oaths not to abuse the power and privilege of their position. In essence the physician is required to stop being human and leave their prejudices at the door.

Henry Hank McCoy prepares himself to perform an autopsy. He is a multi-tasking man of science and medicine. He is surgeon, researcher, physician and now mortician and medical examiner, all rolled into one suave and hirsute bundle. He knows precisely what the verdict of this macabre exploration will be; death by misadventure; suicide by self-inflicted folly.

Hank McCoy, the X-men's very own blue furred and bounding Beast, once of the Avengers, prepares to carve up the body on the examination table before him and wonders why he should bother. He knows that no one has attempted to seek familial consent and he equally knows that this goes against the spirit of the oaths he lives by. The X-men have assumed rights of next of kin in this instance, as they always do under these circumstances.

There is a very cruel irony to this. The dead man, who had been known to possess a rather cruel sense of humour, would probably find it funny.

Hank McCoy hesitates before making the first incision. Were he allowed to be just a man and not a physician he would refuse to do this. He supposes that he can still refuse; an autopsy is unnecessary and likely in ill-taste under the circumstances. The X-men know how this man died.

Hank himself knows; he was there.

There was a fierce debate over whether or not the body should be interred in the hallowed ground of the mansion cemetery. Jean and Warren said no; Judas does not have the right to lie beside the apostles he betrayed. Logan said they were all fools but he did not argue in favour of proper burial; his sense of honour not extending to the corpse of this particular fallen comrade, it seems. There were others still who wondered why the body had been retrieved from the place of death in the first place.

Out of sight; out of mind. The man had died far, far away from where he had lived.

Hank has often postulated that there is precious little dignity in death. Bowels loosen, rigor mortis sets in, congealing blood grants an unappealing grey colour to a cadaver's flesh, and decomposition itself is a rapturous symphony of indignity. Lying naked on an operating table waiting for Hank to make the first incision, the body before him is robbed of all dignity. Every wound he has ever suffered exposed and lain bare; there are rather a lot of them too.

It is undignified Hank thinks – this is needlessly invasive. The man is dead, Hank thinks; this is merely vindictiveness. He should be ashamed of himself.

Then again, the man who once possessed this body had never had much dignity in life and the secrets he hoarded had hurt people Hank cares about. Why should his corpse be allowed to harbour any more painful secrets?

Hank's hand clenches around the scalpel. He has always believed in equality; in treating all men and women with fairness and an open mind. As a mutant he has seen the horrors of prejudice, and as a physician he has taken oaths to treat every patient with dignity and respect, no matter what his personal feelings may be.

He looks down on the corpse on his table and he sees the various demarcations of degradation and suffering preserved in death upon the topography of his dead flesh. It is an ugly, ugly sight.

Hank knows, as a scientist and as a man blessed and cursed with imagination, that the last few days of the dead man's life had been immeasurably awful. His body subjected to conditions no human and precious few mutants could endure.

As a scientist and a physician Hank can categorise each injury and theorise over the pain and the discomfort it would have caused the man while he lived. The ligature burns on his wrists and ankles; those would have been the least of it. The necrotic frost bite to the man's left foot, however, now _that_, would have been immensely painful. Had the man lived he probably would have lost the leg from the knee down. Frost bite had begun to eat into the man's facial features too; the nose, the lips. His hands and fingers also bare the marks of extreme sub-zero temperatures. Hank suspects that some of this set in post mortem but, all the same, the dead man's last few hours of life would have been filled with unremitting pain.

_Maybe I'm being cynical, mes amis, but I got this feeling that y'all not gon be coming back. _

Hank has hypothesised already, without making a single exploratory cut, that the man died somewhere between three and seven days after being stranded in the derelict base. He may even have attempted to brave the cold of the ice shelf before that, and Hank suspects that if he did, it would have likely accounted for the virulent frost bite.

_Am I supposed to walk? To where? There don' be anything but ice and fucking snow for miles. _

The man had finally used a fragment from the metallic blade of the guillotine he had been locked into during his "trial" to put an end to his own suffering.

_You want me to kill myself? Will that do it? Will all be forgiven then?_

The mess he made of his own throat suggests that either a lack of conviction in the final moments, or else muscle wastage and weakness due to hypothermia, caused his hands to slip. There are a number of relatively shallow lacerations studding his neck, and one deep puncture would, which penetrated the carotid artery, evident on the grey column of his throat. The final long, deep stroke of the blade tracing under the chin, almost from ear to ear, did not so much finish the job as simply allow him to bleed out much more swiftly.

_The guillotine broke; don't that just beat all?_

The dead man had obviously attempted some sort of order while arranging his death. He had chosen to die under the statue of blind justice and had actually managed to tie a knotted piece of rope around his own head; fashioning a highly damaging blind fold for his own eyes.

Hank cannot begin to fathom what purpose this served but the scientist in him supposes that sickness and cold had most likely made the subject irrational by this point. The dead man had managed to do quite significant damage to his eyes with the blind fold; the Shi'ar sensors picked up some haemorrhaging there, which would have been impossible to see with the naked eye due to the unique coloration of the man's sclera.

Hank had always been fascinated by the subject's eyes; he had asked to study the depth and range of the man's visual spectrum more than once. The dead man had refused point blank. Hank had been annoyed and somewhat affronted.

_I got to admit it, mes compeers. I don't get this. I don't know what you want from me._

The dead man, damn him, had also found a recording device during his earlier foraging in the abandoned base, and had somehow contrived in his desperation inspired madness, to climb the statue of blind justice and affix the headphones to her head and rest the device in the cradle of her scales. Hank does not know, in relation to the degree of pain the man would have been in at that time, how he managed this feat. He wonders what statement the man thought he was making and whether it was worth it. When the small team of X-men, led by Storm, had returned to the base, the batteries had been dead in the machine, but the tape had survived the elements.

_It ain't like any o' you, except for mon Stormy an' Rogue, ever even ask me for the truth before, non?_

Hank had been opposed to listening to the contents of the tape. He felt that it would serve no good purpose; and he still feels that it served no purpose. Ororo demanded that it be played however, and that all X-men listen to it. Hank is still not sure what Storm hoped to gain from the act; it was only ever the last stuttered words of a dying man.

_Y'all said it didn't matter, my past, because I was one of you now – an X-man – so tell me, mes amis; when'd you go an' change the rules?_

Hank is not sure that anyone really listened to it anyway. The X-men knew what they thought and they would not be swayed by the posthumous ramblings of a traitor.

_You know what, mes braves? It don' matter; this ain't so bad after all. I always figured I'd die alone; it bon to be right about something for a change. Still woulda preferred to meet my maker somewhere warmer though, non? _

Hank looks down upon the cadaver lying on the table. He prepares to open the man up from sternum to abdomen. He expects to find lungs corroded by nicotine and carcinogens, and a liver made fatty from heavy drinking. He expects to peel back layers of flesh and weigh the value of anonymous internal organs before replacing them and stitching the corpse back up. He thinks again that there is no dignity in death.

_Look on the bright side, eh, Hell gon be plenty hot enough for a body, oui? An' I already got me an' invitation to Satan's maison; might as well cash it in here as anywhere._

It occurs to Hank bitterly that he can finally examine the man's physiology as he was always prevented from doing, by the ethical boundaries of consent, while the man lived.

_All my sins are out in the open now; I guess that's a good thing. No more secrets. _

Hank McCoy puts down his scalpel and walks away from the corpse on his operating table. He tastes the remnant of the evening meal, lasagne, on his tongue. It tastes of bitterness and bile.

_Mon dieu, you think maybe the truth will set _me_ free?_

Hank McCoy reminds himself that the body behind him is just that; a body. It is no more inherently offensive than a carcass from a butcher shop. Hank McCoy tries to remind himself that he is not a man with a man's prejudices right now, but instead a physician. He has taken an oath to be something other than a petty, vindictive human being.

Hank McCoy prides himself on being a compassionate man. He has tried to feel compassion for the bigots who pelt him with stones if he travels too far afield without an image inducer; he feels compassion for Magneto and the horrors inflicted on the boy Eric Lehnserr in Auschwitz, and how those horrors created the twisted shell of the Master of Magnetism. He always tries to see not enemies across the equal rights battle ground, or sworn foes, but men and women, equal to him, and with their own fears, weaknesses, and reasons for their hatred.

Hank McCoy is an X-man that means he believes in redemption and in second chances. He believes that even violent, brutal men like Sabretooth should be helped to reform if it is possible to do so. He has indoctrinated himself with the firm belief that no one is beyond consideration.

_I believed it……. for what it's worth, I believed your dream, X-men. That wasn't a lie. I dreamed o' something better. Just tell me one thing…._

Despite all this, despite everything Hank McCoy believes about himself, and despite all the oaths he has taken, when he turns back to the dead man lying naked across his table, he can dredge up no sense of compassion or sorrow for the man this corpse used to be.

……_Is this justice? Does this make it right? Ice and blood and everything gon be forgiven?_

Hank looks down on the corpse before him and realises that he never liked this man; that's what it comes down to in the end. Hank McCoy has known this man for four years; fought and bled and lived under the same roof, alongside him, but now, in the silence of the operating room, Hank cannot escape the fact that he truly never liked him.

_Ah woe is me, I'm sick o' jus' listenin t' myself. Played the hand dealt me and I played it badly. Them's just the brakes, oui?_

Hank supposes that the dead man had tried to ingratiate himself with Hank and the rest of the team. The man had once accompanied Hank and some of the other X-men to his parents' farm in Iowa. Hank recalls, with residual surprise, that his parents had_ liked_ the man. His mother had called him a 'charming' young man. In fact the man had been more enamoured of the whole experience of farm living than little Franklin Richards, for whom the excursion had been devised. Hank wonders for the first time if it was the first time the dead man had ever visited a farm – or a family.

_I guess I was jus' born to be sucker, eh? It's not like this is the firs' time I been left high and dry. Think mebbe I shoulda learned somet'ing from that by now, non?_

Dispassionately Hank supposes if he tried he could categorise other examples of camaraderie and overtures of friendship made, just as he had already documented every wound and mark on the dead man's body. The scientist in Hank wonders why it is that in some inter-personal relations similar gestures and overtures can produce such diverse and diametrically opposing reactions in different targets? Hank considers himself a man predisposed to like others; he is a sociable, amiable man, yet he never liked the man lying dead on his operating table.

_I must jus' have one o' them personalities, oui? Jus' weren' in my cards to be liked, or trusted, or mon dieu, even given the benefit o' the doubt. _

Hank reminds himself that the dead man lying before him had been a professional criminal who had made a living preying on others for personal gain. He had been a shambolic wreck of an individual with any number of deep rooted psychological and emotional problems, which found physical expression in a narcissistic, possibly masochistic, inherently dishonest personality.

_Alors it not like it matter now, oui? Hell, I don't even like me all that much either. Mebbe this be the best thing all round, no? Don' feel like startin' all over again someplace else, an' I be tired o' pickin' up the pieces o' my life over and over. _

Hank returns to the table and picks up the scalpel before putting it down again immediately. He looks at the dead man. He thinks, in a clinical manner, what a waste it is. This man can be no more than twenty-six years old. That is terribly young to have his entire life judged on one act of folly, the details of which are still unknown, and thusly have that life rendered forfeit.

More than that, Hank's conscience prods him, this body on the slab used to be a human being, and all human beings are born with the capacity for greatness. Of course, Hank reconsiders; the man who once inhabited this body never gave the slightest inclination that he wanted to make anything of himself. No, instead the man idled away his best years gambling, drinking, smoking and spiralling in ever decreasing circles of self-destruction.

Stars and Garters, Hank isn't even sure the man was fully literate; certainly Hank never saw him try to broaden his horizons with any sort of reading.

Still, Hank remembers that Cannonball, who had drawn the short straw and been drafted to clear the man's old room, had found a dog-eared copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Machiavelli's "The Prince" stacked atop the Old Testament and a copy of the Koran, among the dead man's disparate belongings.

_It is so cold and I feel so tired. This old song is gettin' old. I never wanted to be alone. I never wanted a lot o' things that ended up happ'nin but that never made any diff'rence in the end._

Hank supposes, trying to be fair to a man long past caring, that men are not books and one cannot judge them by their covers.

_I don't fear dyin' - I figure it can't be all that hard, oui? No harder then livin' anyhow._

Hank thinks briefly and tangentially on his frustrated, futile research into the Legacy Virus, which continues to strike down mutants and humans alike despite his best efforts to find a cure. Hank thinks about all the victims of the virus who could have done wonderful things with their lives but have been denied the chance by cruel circumstance.

Hank picks up the scalpel once more; his hand clenches around the stainless steel.

This man lying before him died because he was selfish, foolish, and cowardly. He took part in an act of senseless, monstrous depravity, and then tried to hide the fact for his own good. Even when discovered in his deceptions the man could not offer any coherent explanation for his actions. Stupidity and ignorance have never been a defence for murder, Hank thinks.

_I only got this one las' question mes amis…. _

Hank's sharpened canines scrap together as he begins grinding his teeth together. His grip on the scalpel has bent it and he throws it down in favour of another stainless steel implement.

……_..will this take the pain away? Will my death make it right? Is this how I can finally atone?_

Hank stares down at the corpse lying on the slab before him. Hank's eyes burn and his dinner stews in his stomach. There is a pounding in his ears as his heart thunders. The dead man had been a pathetic, reprehensible waste of a life, Hank thinks savagely. He died a pointless death because he had squandered any number of chances and reprieves before hand. He had taken charity under false pretences, and joined the X-men while harbouring vile secrets that could have jeopardised the team.

Hank hesitates again with the point of the scalpel against dead flesh.

_Thank you, mes amis, for showin' me that some things can't be forgiven. Thank you, for showin' me that I am truly damned. _

Hank drops the new scalpel back down into the stainless steel tray filled with autopsy tools. He hooks a dexterous foot around his wheelie chair and pulls it up to the side of the table. He perches on the seat and cups his large furred head in his large clawed hands. Hank has failed in his oaths, not just as a physician, or even as an X-man, but as a human being.

_Au revoir X-men, it been fun but I got to be rollin' on now. _

Hank left a man to die – for no better reason than because he never liked him.

_Alors mes braves: the traitor Gambit is dead….. _

Hank's hand shakes. Since his late teens he has fought for Charles' dream, which became his own dream. He has faced down threats fantastical and almost insurmountable and survived to tell the tale.

This is different; _today_ is different. This wasn't Magneto, whose threat could be diluted through false empathy, or Apocalypse, whose megalomania is so over-blown as to be almost ridiculous, or even Sinister, and his inhumane obsession and pervasion of the same idylls of science Hank holds dear.

……_Justice is served, non?_

Today the enemy is Hank himself, because today he realises just how far from reality Charles' dream has become. Today he is the monster - and the battle is already lost.

Hank McCoy rises from the chair and sets aside the autopsy tools completely, pushing them back into their cabinet. He leans forward, pulling the Shi'ar polymer sheet over the dead man's head. There will be no autopsy today, or tomorrow, because none is needed. Hank already knows what caused his teammate's death: misplaced trust in the wrong people.

Hank McCoy sheds his white lab coat and turns off the lights in his lab. He goes up to his room without stopping to talk with anyone.

He finds his own battered copy of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" on the shelf and he starts to read.


End file.
